NFL to Consider Rule Change to Use Replay on Facemask Penalties, Roger Goodell Says

After a handful of games were affected by missed facemask penalties this season, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters that the league will "talk about" adding replay assistant use to get the calls right.

"We want to use technology to supplement and support officials in getting it right," Goodell told reporters. "I see us in the future adding more plays (to replay review), like facemasks, etc. ... They don't have time to go back and look, they've got to make a snap decision."

Goodell added that replay assistance had been positive for the game, and he believes the league will expand its use moving forward.

"I see us, in the future, adding more plays," Goodell said.

Changes in the types of plays eligible for replay assistance would come during the offseason after meetings are held.

This is not the first time that the use of facemask replay has been brought up as a possible change. NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent mentioned it during the December league meeting.

"Concerning yes, because that's a big miss—that's a big foul," Vincent said at the meeting, per the NFL. "We would like to consider—or for the membership to consider—putting that foul category that we can see, putting that on the field to help because there is a frustration. We believe that is one category that we can potentially get right."

That stemmed from a missed facemask penalty in the fourth quarter of the Cincinnati Bengals' 27-20 victory over the Dallas Cowboys when a Cowboys defender grabbed Joe Burrow's facemask and twisted his helmet, resulting in a strip-sack.

A huge facemask penalty was also missed in the Minnesota Vikings' 30-20 loss against the Los Angeles Rams in October, when Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold's facemask was grabbed during the Vikings' final drive of the game.

The addition of reviewable plays would be a big deal, as the league has been hesitant to allow subjective plays to be reviewable. Pass interference plays became reviewable in 2019, but that only lasted one season.

Otherwise, the NFL has never allowed replays to determine that a penalty was missed on the field. That would change for a facemask foul, which carries a 15-yard penalty.

"The membership really has to decide what they want that standard to be," Vincent said, per the NFL. "That is do you want some of those things that are subjective, objective, do you want to include those? That's why you always hear us say 'crawl, walk, jog.' … This year the facemask seemed like the obvious; that keeps showing up. A few years past it was maybe the roughing the passer, the low contact.

Heading into the 2025 season, some big changes in replay could be implemented.